Sign-Up Post for Femgenficathon II

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

So here's the sign-up post for the femgenficathon.

Last year, this ficathon was HP-centric. This year, by popular acclaim, the ficathon is multifandom. It is also an open ficathon. You can write in any fandom you like, about any canonical woman you like. I hope this will make it easy on the participants.

(Also, I have a feeling that a lot of stories never get written because no one ever asks for them in fic exchanges. This is your chance to to write the story you've thought of writing, but that no one ever requests.)

There will be prompts. More about that after the rules.

What's acceptable and what's not are both spelled out in the rules.

The due dates--first and last--are both mentioned in the rules.

Here are the rules. Read them carefully before you sign up.

RULES

Liberally stolen from the peterficathon, from celticmoonstar, and from Jetamors' Page o' Gen Recs:

1. Good spelling, grammar, capitalisation and punctuation are compulsory. This is not negotiable. Therefore, use a beta/Britpicker to catch all the errors that you can't see by the time that you've finished the story.

2. Fics must be posted in the following format:

In the subject line: [title, main character, rating]

Title:
Author: [your LJ name, and your pen name if the two are different]
Rating: [currently we still use MPAA ratings - G, PG, PG13, R]
Warnings: [if applicable. warn for violence, swearing, etc. You shouldn't have to warn about kinks or squicks because this is genfic.]
Prompt: The number of the prompt, the prompt itself, and the author's name. Please do this even if you end up not using the prompt to create the story.
Summary: [including author's notes and credit, a short description of the fic]

3. Use a beta.

4. The fic you write should be at least 1000 words in length.

5. Use a bloody beta.

6. This would seem to be obvious, but in case it is not...

This is a femgenficathon. It follows, therefore, that what you will be writing will be genfic, with women as the main characters.

For the purposes of this ficathon, "women" will be defined as "biological women and girls who remain biologically women and girls all the time."

This means no pre-operative transsexuals. No drag queens. No male transvestites. Not as the lead or POV characters. Yes, such characters can be in the story. But they can't be the leads, or the POV characters.

Because, when you come right down to it, this is a ficathon about women. Not men who identify as women. Not men who feel like women trapped in a man's body. WOMEN.

Second, the stories have to be gen.

If you're not sure what genfic is, here are the kinds of genfic allowable:

Pure gen: Stories with no romance whatsoever. The most you'll see here is a person who happens to be married.

Mostly gen: Stories contain mentions of crushing and/or romances, with perhaps a kiss or two. Not the focus of the piece or anything, but it is there.

Borderline gen: Stories that include many different elements, including romance. However, the focus is not on getting one or two specific couples together romantically or in bed.

What is not allowable:

NO PAIRINGS as the focus of the story.

No love stories as the focus. No sex stories as the focus. (This includes masturbation stories, "first-time" stories, pregnancy stories, stories about giving birth, rapefic, and so on.) No het as the focus. No femslash as the focus. No kinks, squicks or smut at all.

This also means that you cannot mention the woman and then go on to characters you find more congenial. For instance, you cannot briefly mention Mrs. Black and then go on to write a fic about either or both of her two sons.

No crossovers. I have a feeling that this is going to be difficult enough to do well without having the writers trying to reconcile two universes, two incompatible magic systems, etc. (Someday I may end up running a crossover ficathon, but not here and not now.)

No genderswitched characters.

Since you are going to be writing about women and girls, I urge you to make them believable. Do not turn them into Mary Sues.

For the purposes of this ficathon, I am defining "Mary Sue" as "authorial stand-in who possesses many, if not all, characteristics that the writer wants to possess--good looks, intelligence, "attitude," "coolness," wealth, noble or royal blood, special toys that no one else has, the love of all canon characters, the love and desire of the author's lust object(s), special powers that may or may not be canonically possible, a Destiny--and a remarkable talent to send all canon characters OOC and to kill the plot."

A Mary Sue can be either an original character or a canon character. Believe me, I have seen Hermione and Ginny Sued many, many, many, many times.

DO NOT WRITE MARY SUES OR YOU WILL HAVE VERY CROSS MODS.

7. Please. Use a beta.

8. What can you write about?

You can write about any female character in any canon. And you can write about pretty much anything, as long as the story isn't about romantic love, sex or pairings. Here's what I'm looking for:

I want women going on personal quests. I'd want women and girls having adventures. You could have a woman in mad pursuit of a magical artifact, or a spy. You could have a woman rescuing another person from danger, or a woman escaping from a physical, emotional or spiritual prison. A woman could become enmeshed in a byzantine plot for revenge. A woman could have to solve a puzzle or a mystery; she could be entangled in fierce professional or familial rivalry. You could have a woman struggling to overcome her status as an underdog; you could examine her motives, needs and impulses in a temptation plot. She could be coping with involuntary physical metamorphosis or have to undergo psychological and emotional transformation for the sake of survival. Maturation could be a goal. She could have to sacrifice something--perhaps not her life, but other things can be sacrificed, such as friendship and ideals. She could discover something or explore somewhere. You could tell a tale of wretched excess, detailing her psychological decline. You could explore her rise or fall, showing how a crisis made her either a stronger, better person or a weaker, more corrupt one.

9. Posting. I myself am a fanfic writer so, I too am subject to this (and all the rules as well). Please, do not choose a challenge because you have a fic already done (or in the works) that would fit a certain challenge. The whole point of the femgenficathon is to get new genfic out there. Therefore previously written stories are NOT eligible.

Also, your fic should not be archived anywhere other than the femgenficathon livejournal or site until after August 15th. Similarly, nothing should be posted to the community until July 31st - until then, either comment or keep it to emails.

10. For the love of all things holy (can you tell this is my favourite rule?) use a bloody beta.

11. Get your story in on time. You're being given two and a half months to write your fic and as such are expected to finish. That said, extensions will be granted for those in desperate situations - make sure to email as soon as you feel you won't be able to finish in time, for the sake of the moderator's sanity.

12. I implore you on bended knee--USE A BETA.

13. Have fun. And don't cause the mods undue stress if you can help it. Please. Don't break the mods.

DATES:

1 May: Sign-ups begin.
28 May: Sign-ups end.
31 July: Assignments able to be posted.
15 August: Final date for submission.

***

Now. About the prompts.

If you want to sign up, comment to this post with a) your LJ name, b) an e-mail at which I can contact you, if I have to, and c)any number from 1 101 to 100 150. I'll respond with a quotation by a woman or about women. That's your prompt.

Once a number has been chosen, it cannot be chosen again. I'll list the numbers that are taken in this post. Please check the comments before requesting a number.

ETA: One of the people who signed up asked me what was supposed to be done with the prompts. The answer is, anything you like. You can put the prompt at the head of your story, include it in the narrative or the dialogue, use the images or ideas in the prompt to help you create a story, or, if it doesn't help you, toss it aside and use an idea or plot or character you really want to use. The prompt is there to help give you ideas, nothing more.

PROMPTS

1) Fear is not a good teacher. The lessons of fear are quickly forgotten.-- Mary Catherine Bateson. (claimed by xellas)

2) Until you lose your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.--Margaret Mitchell. (claimed by obeetaybee)

3) Having levelled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.--Emily Bronte. (claimed by hibernater)

4) No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this -- 'devoted and obedient.' This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.--Florence Nightingale. (claimed by pre_raphaelite1)

5) The extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire since the word go!--Annie Dillard. (claimed by dbassassin)

6) What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?--Toni Morrison. (claimed by a_t_rain)

7) Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name!--Emma Goldman. (claimed by stella_belli)

8) Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands.--Abigail Adams. (claimed by lissibeth)

9) Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.--Mignon McLaughlin. (claimed by mugglegirl0908)

10) The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.--Edith Wharton. (claimed by expositionary)

11) If what I do prove well, it won't advance,/They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance.--Anne Bradstreet. (claimed by sibility)

12) If you can keep your head about you when all about you are losing theirs, its just possible you haven't grasped the situation.--Jean Kerr. (claimed by shaggydogstail)

13) Whatever the theories may be of woman's dependence on man, in the supreme moments of her life he can not bear her burdens.--Elizabeth Cady Stanton. (claimed by ignipes)

14) The difference between mad people and sane people... is that sane people have variety when they talk-story. Mad people have only one story that they talk over and over. --Maxine Hong Kingston. (claimed by katsaris)

15) I have noticed that as soon as you have soldiers the story is called history. Before their arrival it is called myth, folktale, legend, fairy tale, oral poetry, ethnography. After the soldiers arrive, it is called history.--Paula Gunn Allen. (claimed by barbed_whispers)

16) I am, was, and always will be a catalyst for change--Shirley Chisholm. (claimed by ranchangrnl)

17) The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.--Anne Morrow Lindbergh. (claimed by cygna_hime)

18) No good deed goes unpunished.--Clare Booth Luce. (claimed by corvidae9)

19) I found I could say things with colors that I couldn't say in any other way -- things that I had no words for.--Georgia O'Keeffe. (claimed by sitonamicrowave)

20) One likes people much better when they're battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.--Virginia Woolf. (claimed by paper_tzipporah)

21) All of us who grew up before the war are immigrants in time, immigrants from an earlier world, living in an age essentially different from anything we knew before. The young are at home here. Their eyes have always seen satellites in the sky. They have never known a world in which war did not mean annihilation.--Margaret Mead. (claimed by lysa1)

22) Her childhood, then her adolescence, had taught her patience, hope, silence and the easy manipulation of the weapons and virtues of all prisoners.--Colette. (claimed by gloredhel04)

23) There's one thing to be said for inviting trouble: it generally accepts.--May Maloo. (claimed by cadillacaro)

24) Sacredness of human life! The world has never believed it! It has been with life that we settled our quarrels, won wives, gold and land, defended ideas, imposed religions. We have held that a death toll was a necessary part of every human achievement, whether sport, war or industry. A moment's rage over the horror of it, and we have sunk into indifference.--Ida M. Tarbell. (claimed by albur)

25) How can one not speak about war, poverty, and inequality when people who suffer from these afflictions don't have a voice to speak?--Isabelle Allende. (claimed by capturedinprint)

26) Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.--Dorothy Parker. (claimed by kethlenda)

27) If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.--Margaret Thatcher. (claimed by wildestranger)

28) But if these people of the future are better than we are, they will, perhaps, look back at us with feelings of pity and tenderness for struggling souls who once divined a little of what the future would bring.--George Sand. (claimed by nessa_owen)

29) The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.--Harriet Beecher Stowe. (claimed by velvetmouse)

30) You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.--Harriet Woods. (claimed by rosewilliams)

31) By the time I'd grown up, I naturally supposed that I'd grown up.--Eve Babitz. (claimed by lilacsigil)

32) What do you do after you are world famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope? Do you go back home and take a job? What do you do to keep your sanity? You come back to the real world.--Wilma Rudolph. (claimed by minkhollow)

33) We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.--Ursula LeGuin. (claimed by bravecows)

34) Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things; knows not the livid loneliness of fear.--Amelia Earhart. (claimed by sarah_frost)

35) The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.--Dorothy L. Sayers. (claimed by obsessivemuch)

36) I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.--Harriet Tubman. (claimed by lareinenoire)

37) The establishment is made up of little men, very frightened.--Bella Abzug. (claimed by jaswanson)

38) If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.--Sylvia Plath. (claimed by awigeon)

39) I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness – to save oneself trouble.--Agatha Christie. (claimed by melusinahp)

40) To have a good enemy, choose a friend; he knows where to strike.--Diane de Poiters. (claimed by daegaer)

41) The memory of most men is an abandoned cemetery where lie, unsung and unhonored, the dead whom they have ceased to cherish. Any lasting grief is reproof to their forgetfulness.--Marguerite Yourcenar. (claimed by krabapple)

42) Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?--Lillian Hellman. (claimed by dragonclaws)

43) Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.--Anais Nin. (claimed by troubleinchina)

44) Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns all clean.--Maya Angelou. (claimed by dolabellae)

45) There are glances of hatred that stab, and raise no cry of murder.--George Eliot. (claimed by snegurochka_lee)

46) It is not easy to be a pioneer -- but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world.--Elizabeth Blackwell. (claimed by b2wm)

47) If age imparted wisdom, there wouldn't be any old fools.--Claudia Young. (claimed by perseph)

48) Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.--Billie Holiday. (claimed by nextian)

49) No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.--Carrie Chapman Catt. (claimed by eudaimon)

50) Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are.--Madeleine L'Engle. (claimed by gm_weasley)

51) Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe, aren't even aware of.--Ellen Goodman. (claimed by penknife)

52) Besides learning to see, there is another art to be learned -- not to see what is not.--Maria Mitchell. (claimed by arislanchan)

53) No more tears now; I will think about revenge.--Mary Queen of Scots. (claimed by lazy_neutrino)

54) More piercing, more unbearable than blame / Is to be understood.--Frances Cornford. (claimed by bizarity)

55) I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say.--Ingrid Bergman. (claimed by lady_sarai)

56) Flops are a part of life's menu and I've never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses.--Rosalind Russell. (claimed by lupinslittlesis)

57) Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.--Missy Dizick. (claimed by a_kindara)

58) I have reached a point in my life where I understand the pain and the challenges; and my attitude is one of standing up with open arms to meet them all.--Myrlie Evers. (claimed by unlucky)

59) It is terrible to destroy a person’s picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.--Doris Lessing. (claimed by quietliban)

60) You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. And that's sufficient.--Rose King. (claimed by rynne)

61) A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.--Ariel Durant. (claimed by snorkackcatcher)

62) I do not mind if I lose my soul for all eternity. If the kind of God exists Who would damn me for not working out a deal with Him, then that is unfortunate. I should not care to spend eternity in the company of such a person.--Mary McCarthy. (claimed by dora_the_nymph)

63) Knowledge is power, if you know it about the right person.--Ethel Watts Mumford. (claimed by elucreh)

64) Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do.--Golda Meir. (claimed by ctorres)

65) There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own.--Katherine Anne Porter. (claimed by settiai)

66) It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.--Sister Elizabeth Kenny. (claimed by aconite)

67) Power should not be concentrated in the hands of so few, and powerlessness in the hands of so many.--Maggie Kuhn. (claimed by srichard)

68) Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.--Pearl Buck. (claimed by slaygirl)

69) I remember what was missing instead of what was there. I am a chronicler of absence.--Carrie Fisher. (claimed by imadra_blue)

70) It took nine years, and a great depression, and two wars ending in defeat, and one surrender without war, to break my faith in the benign power of the press. Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was honey, appetizing: a habit.--Martha Gellhorn. (claimed by loneraven)

71) I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.--Margaret Atwood. (claimed by justholdstill)

72) By the time we are women, fear is as familiar to us as air; it is our element. We live in it, we inhale it, we exhale it, and most of the time we do not even notice it. Instead of "I am afraid," we say, "I don't want to," or "I don't know how," or "I can't."--Andrea Dworkin. (claimed by principessa05)

73) Lying is done with words and also with silence.--Adrienne Rich. (claimed by lidane)

74) It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised; the mosquito is swatted.--Marie O'Conner. (claimed by meddow)

75) I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.--Charlotte Perkins Gilman. (claimed by rosefyre)

76) I believe that always, or almost always, in all childhoods and in all the lives that follow them, the mother represents madness. Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met.--Marguerite Duras. (claimed by dea_liberty)

77) You don't have to have fought in a war to love peace.--Geraldine Ferraro. (claimed by golden_d)

78) The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil.--Hannah Arendt. (claimed by sionnain)

79) I have learned this strange thing, too, about travel: one may return to a place and, quite unexpectedly, meet oneself still lingering there from the last time.--Helen Bevington. (claimed by zeldaophelia)

80) As to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals -- or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all. A group of closely related persons living under one roof; it is a convenience, often a necessity, sometimes a pleasure, sometimes the reverse; but who first exalted it as admirable, an almost religious ideal?--Rose Macauley. (claimed by lyras)

81) Starting all over, it's kind of difficult saying where you want to go. You go step by step, waiting and waiting, and, I guess, being a sprinter, it's hard to wait.--Wyomia Tyus. (claimed by mollierms)

82) Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.--Jane Austen. (claimed by aradiachiba)

83) I am angry nearly every day of my life, but I have learned not to show it; and I still try to hope not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do it.--Louisa May Alcott. (claimed by unicornwiwings)

84) The weak are the most treacherous of us all. They come to the strong and drain them. They are bottomless. They are insatiable. They are always parched and always bitter. They are everyone's concern and like vampires they suck out life's blood.--Bette Davis. (claimed by aberforths_rug)

85) Lost things, she felt certain, had a life of their own. They come back to their families like stray dogs.--Nancy Willard. (claimed by trinity1986)

86) You seek for knowledge and wisdom as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.--Mary Shelley. (claimed by mad_maudlin)

87) I'll not listen to reason. Reason always means what someone else has got to say.--Elizabeth Gaskell. (claimed by wildesidewalker)

88) Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.--Helen Keller. (claimed by remarked)

89) Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.--Susan B. Anthony. (claimed by virginia_bell)

90) I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.--Frida Kahlo. (claimed by nokomis305)

91) The only causes of regret are laziness, outbursts of temper, hurting others, prejudice, jealousy and envy.--Germaine Greer. (claimed by skylar_inari)

92) There can never be enough said of the virtues, the dangers, the power of a shared laugh.--Francoise Sagan. (claimed by nineveh_uk)

93) Oh, write of me, not "Died in bitter pains,"/But "Emigrated to another star!"--Helen Hunt Jackson. (claimed by thistlerose)

94) All the intelligence and talent in the world can't make a singer. The voice is a wild thing. It can't be bred in captivity.--Willa Cather. (claimed by texasmagic)

95) But the beginnings of things, of the world especially, are necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such a beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!--Kate Chopin. (claimed by emei)

96) There are some women in whom conscience is so strongly developed that it leaves little room for anything else. Love is scarcely felt before duty rushes to encase it, anger impossible because one must always be calm and see both sides, pity evaporates in expedients, even grief is felt as a sort of bruised sense of injury, a resentment that one should have grief forced upon one when one has always acted for the best.--Sylvia Townsend Warner. (claimed by theregoesyamum)

97) I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.--Rita Mae Brown. (claimed by greyladybast)

98) Politeness is half good manners and half good lying.--Mary Wilson Little. (claimed by parcae)

99) When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot?--Kathleen Norris. (claimed by zoe_chan)

100) If you weigh well the strengths of our armies you will see that in this battle we must conquer or die. This is a woman's resolve. As for the men, they may live or be slaves.--Boadaceia. (claimed by malefics)

101) I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.--Gilda Radner. (claimed by vermin_disciple)

102) If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.--Rachel Carson. (claimed by uarazy2)

103) Since when was genius found respectable?--Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (claimed by jazzyjello)

104) Winning may not be everything, but losing has little to recommend it.-- (claimed by tielan)

105) We don't accomplish anything in this world alone ... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.--Sandra Day O'Connor. (claimed by rose_whispers)

106) Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.--Pearl Buck. (claimed by summerborn)

107) One needs something to believe in, something for which one can have whole-hearted enthusiasm. One needs to feel that one's life has meaning, that one is needed in this world.--Hannah Senesh. (claimed by gehayi)

108) People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.--Audrey Hepburn. (claimed by seldear)

109) So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why don't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?--Harriet Beecher Stowe. (claimed by theenginedriver)

110) The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.--Ursula K. LeGuin. (claimed by australienne)

111) They have not wanted peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war -- as though the absence of war was the same as peace.--Dorothy Thompson. (claimed by incognito)

112) The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.--Ayn Rand. (claimed by femslashqueen)

113) The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.--Muriel Rukeyser. (claimed by moontyger)

114) We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't, it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.--Jessamyn West. (claimed by eska_rina)

115) Risk-taking, trust, and serendipity are key ingredients of joy. Without risk, nothing new ever happens. Without trust, fear creeps in. Without serendipity, there are no surprises.--Rita Golden Gelman. (claimed by ygrawn)

116) We must overcome the notion that we must be regular...it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre.--Uta Hagen. (claimed by stellaluna_)

117) Fear grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light.--Dorothy Thompson. (claimed by ksrli)

118) We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.--Anais Nin. (claimed by jetamors)

119) When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.--Virginia Woolf. (claimed by fairest1)

120) There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.--Colette. (claimed by ressie_noldo)

121) Our strength is often composed of the weakness we're damned if we're going to show.--Mignon McLaughlin. (claimed by 9muses)

122) The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.--Ellen Parr. (claimed by somethin_random)

123) From antiquity, people have recognized the connection between naming and power.--Casey Miller and Kate Swift. (claimed by annavtree)

124) Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.--George Eliot. (claimed by da_angel729)

125) The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.--Abigail Van Buren. (claimed by veracity)

126) I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands.--Zora Neale Hurston. (claimed by soaked_in_stars)

127) And the crazy part of it was even if you were clever, even if you spent your adolescence reading John Donne and Shaw, even if you studied history or zoology or physics and hoped to spend your life pursuing some difficult and challenging career, you still had a mind full of all the soupy longings that every high-school girl was awash in... underneath it, all you longed to be was annihilated by love, to be swept off your feet, to be filled up by a giant prick spouting sperm, soapsuds, silk and satins and, of course, money.--Erica Jong. (claimed by runcible_spoom)

128) I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for contradictions.--Maxine Hong Kingston. (claimed by scarletts_awry)

129) There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.--Marie Curie. (claimed by truffle_shuffle)

130) If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine.--Diana Wynne Jones. (claimed by wild_thistle)

131) One of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people talk too much and think too little. They act impulsively without thinking. I always try to think before I talk.--Margaret Chase Smith. (claimed by raedbard)

132) Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.--Margaret Chase Smith. (claimed by vongroovy)

133) The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.--Rachel Naomi Remen. (claimed by laurus_nobilis)

134) I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.--Dame Edith Sitwell. (claimed by neatokates)

135) If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.--Annie Dillard. (claimed by aella_irene)

136) We want things to be easy for our children, and we know from sad experience that the world can be unkind to girls who do not please, who speak out, who go their own way. But we know from experience, too, that the role of the good girl can be a hollow one, with nothing at the center except other people's expectations where your character might have been.--Anna Quindlen. (claimed by aervir)

137) The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which makes you lonely.--Lorraine Hansberry. (claimed by thenewhope)

138) Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.--Anne Frank. (claimed by osmalic)

139) Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the dark place where it leads.--Erica Jong. (claimed by cinnamon_sakaki)

140) You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty.--Jessica Mitford. (claimed by _cattleya_)

141) Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent.--Sophia Loren. (claimed by aetherbunny)

142) If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.--Catherine Aird. (claimed by merlinssister12)

143) We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction, 'If we don't do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.'--Petra Kelly. (claimed by syrenslure)

144) Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.--Katherine Mansfield. (claimed by das_kabinett)

145) Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age / The child is grown, and puts away childish things. / Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. / Nobody that matters, that is.--Edna St. Vincent Millay. (claimed by magic_at_mungos)

146) You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.--Marian Wright Edelman. (claimed by morriganscrow)

147) All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise.--Cleopatra. (claimed by sefkhet)

148) Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.--Helen Keller. (claimed by katharos_8)

149) Most people hew the battlements of life from compromise, erecting their impregnable keeps from judicious submissions, fabricating their philosophical drawbridges from emotional retractions and scalding marauders in the boiling oil of sour grapes.--Zelda Fitzgerald. (claimed by sirikit)

150) Had I been a man, I might have explored the Poles or climbed Mount Everest, but as it was, my spirit found outlet in the air.--Amy Johnson. (claimed by reluxi)

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156) A ship in harbor is safe-—but that is not what ships were built for.--Admiral Grace Hopper. (claimed by redshoeson)

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163) Time is not a great healer. It is an indifferent and perfunctory one. Sometimes it does not heal at all. And sometimes when it seems to, no healing has been necessary.--Ivy Compton-Burnett. (claimed by asilin)

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166) You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.--Eleanor Roosevelt. (claimed by melata_fic)

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171) We all need to look into the dark side of our nature - that's where the energy is, the passion. People are afraid of that because it holds pieces of us we're busy denying.--Sue Grafton. (claimed by magnetic_pole)

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175) It's surprising how much of memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.--Barbara Kingsolver. (claimed by anderyn)

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177) If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.--Audre Lorde. (claimed by reddiej)

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179) Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other.--Sojourner Truth. (claimed by far_from_gondor)

180) I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.--Lillian Hellman. (claimed by senji)

181) Women have had the power of naming stolen from us. We have not been free to use our own power to name ourselves, the world, or God.--Mary Daly. (claimed by xskadi)

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185) It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the roller-coaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.--Carson McCullers. (claimed by eumenides1)

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191) People do think that if they avoid the truth, it might change to something better before they have to hear it.--Marsha Norman. (claimed by tarimanveri)

192) The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.--Agatha Christie. (claimed by anotherusedpage)

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197) There is nothing in the whole world so painful as feeling that one is not liked. It always seems to me that people who hate me must be suffering from some kind of lunacy.--Sei Shonagon. (claimed by lourdesmont)

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199) I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.--Bell Hooks. (claimed by array_of_colors)

200) Nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you like parts of the role you're trying to escape?--Marilyn French. (claimed by sarmajere)


***

If you have any questions, ask them in the comments, and I will do my best to answer them.

Good luck to all of you! I hope that some excellent stories come from this!

Comments

[zoe-chan.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!! You have no idea how absolutely thrilled I am. I can't wait to get started!